


One Day Late

by afrai



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Space Husbands, more hurt than comfort tbh, not an Everyone Lives AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 19:18:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9508598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrai/pseuds/afrai
Summary: "Come with me, Baze," says the Guardian. "I will get you to safety."This is a fool,thinks Baze – the first of many, many times. The thought will not always be so bitter, but he would not believe it if he were told this now. For Baze there is no future, only the nightmarish present, in which the past has ended, never to be recovered.There is nowhere safe in Jedha, so long as the Empire is here.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: Non-explicit references to torture and child death. No more Major Character Death than features in canon, but canon was ... not great for that.
> 
> Inspired by [that interview with Jiang Wen](http://rookbodhi.tumblr.com/post/154888143200/jiang-wen-on-the-relationship-between-chirrut-and) about Baze and Chirrut's relationship.

His face is wet. He can't see.

"You're in a bad way, brother." The voice is gentle, but it somehow cuts through the unearthly noise of the battle. There are people, lost to the Force, who believe death brings punishment for sins committed in life. They call this hell.

Hell must sound like this.

"Leave me," he says. He knows he's been hurt, though he doesn't feel it yet. He can't move. He would only be a burden. 

When he turns his head towards the presence blocking out the light, he sees the black of a Guardian's robes instead of the white of Imperial plastoid armour. He doesn't recognise the voice, but then there are so many Guardians …

Had been.

So few left.

"Go," he says urgently. "Get the novices out – "

"There are no more novices."

At first he doesn't understand. There are many younglings in the care of the Temple. He can still see their faces in the dimly lit creche. He'd turned to take one last look, because he hadn't thought he would come back. 

The older ones had been more frightened, because they understood. But they were brave. Trusting in the Force, they had soothed the infants, who wept because fear hung in the air like smoke.

Then he knows. Blackness descends upon him.

The Guardian's voice seems to come from a great distance away. "They are with the Force."

Perhaps the Guardian means this as comfort. It works, in a way. It's a reminder of something more important than his despair. He must persuade this man to get away. He rouses himself enough to repeat:

" _Go._ " He'd known every face, every single face. "There is nothing left of me."

"Nonsense," says the voice. "The soldiers are gone. There is no urgency." He hears a rustle, as though the Guardian is getting to his feet, and the light changes.

"You're too large for me to carry," says the voice, "but we'll find a way to get you out of here."

He wants to be left in peace; he would welcome the relief of unconsciousness. But he forces himself to speak, though his tongue is heavy in his mouth. "They said they'd come back, clear out whoever remains … "

"They're not back yet," says the Guardian. "There is time. What is your name, brother?"

"Baze Malbus."

"Come with me, Baze," says the Guardian. "I will get you to safety."

 _This is a fool,_ thinks Baze – the first of many, many times. The thought will not always be so bitter, but he would not believe it if he were told this now. For Baze there is no future, only the nightmarish present, in which the past has ended, never to be recovered. _There is nowhere safe in Jedha, so long as the Empire is here._

* * *

There are, however, pockets of resistance, and places where a badly injured man may convalesce in hiding.

He spends much of his days unconscious, but the Guardian's presence is often with him when he wakes. The first time he is lucid enough to hold a conversation, he says:

"We must get back the Temple."

"Force willing, we will," says the Guardian placidly. "We're preparing for a strike. Eat your soup."

The soup is disgusting. He ignores it. "When? I will come."

But the Guardian won't tell him. When Baze throws the bowl at him, he only ducks. It crashes into a wall and they hear the Twi'lek next door swearing at them.

"Those herbs were very expensive," says the Guardian, with a hint of reproach.

"Don't patronise me," roars Baze. 

He was one of the highest-ranked Guardians in the Temple – one of the youngest to reach the eighth duan. Even the Temple elders had sought his counsel, and no one ever defeated him in a spar. He points this out to the Guardian, not using the most delicate language, but the Guardian seems unimpressed.

"Be sensible, brother," he says reasonably. "You must get better before you rejoin the fight. There are too few of us left to risk."

"Who are you?" says Baze, furious.

"My name is Chirrut Imwe," says the Guardian, adding, "I was in seclusion for three standard years before the invasion."

An anchorite. That explains why Baze doesn't know the name. Some of the Guardians chose this path – they walled themselves off from the rest of the Temple, dedicating themselves to solitary self-improvement, studying the movements of the Force from within their cells. They were holy, somewhat eccentric, occasionally mad. Most were excellent fighters.

"Oh," says Baze, disconcerted. 

Chirrut's dark eyes are full of humour.

"You can't stop me," snaps Baze.

Chirrut hums. "I wouldn't underestimate me, brother."

* * *

It takes a long time for Baze to recover, too long. To his rage he has no part in the first strike against the Empire, or the second – but they barely shake the Imperial forces. Chirrut starts saying, "You will have your chance. The Empire will not be defeated in a day."

He always maintains his anchorite's serenity, but his humour feels darker by the day.

Under interrogation, Chirrut admits to paying the medic who attends to Baze's injuries, but he talks as though he's owning up to a weakness: "I'm too impatient to make a good nurse myself." He won't explain where the credits come from.

Sometimes he's gone for long hours. Then Baze learns what anxiety is, lying uselessly on his pallet.

Baze used to meditate whenever any strong emotion took hold of him. He had prayed to be released from attachment, from anger and fear and worry. Now he grits his teeth and bears it, until Chirrut gets back.

Chirrut doesn't always bring relief. One day Baze emerges from a restless sleep to the now-familiar background drone of Chirrut chanting: 

"I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me … "

Today everything hurts, and Baze finds himself abruptly furious. He struggles to sit up. "Will you _shut up_ for once!"

"Thank you!" shouts the Twi'lek next door.

"You shut up too!" growls Baze. Their neighbour pipes down.

Chirrut is staring at him, taken aback. "Are you all right, brother?"

"Why pray?" says Baze.

Chirrut seems to take this for a koan. "For peace, for clarity, for insight – "

"No," says Baze. "Isn't the fact that we're here – " he gestures at the room, himself, Jedha overrun, the Temple in ruins – "proof that nothing is listening?"

Chirrut looks as though he's watching the Temple burn. "Baze … "

"The Force will do nothing for us," says Baze. Saying it out loud makes him feel like a dead man, though he has thought it many times since they lost the Temple. Only anger keeps him alive. "It has shown its true nature."

Chirrut closes his eyes and bows his head. Baze expects him to do what any conscientious Guardian would – argue, defend, lecture, reproach.

Instead Chirrut says in a whisper, "I will fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it."

Before Baze can react, Chirrut rises to his feet. "I'll go outside, since it bothers you."

It's freezing outside. Baze doesn't apologise, or insist that Chirrut stay.

"How can you still believe?" he says. "The novices … " But it sticks in his throat. He cannot think of the novices.

"When I was alone in my cell," says Chirrut, "I saw that there was darkness in the Force, as well as light." He bends down and kisses Baze on the forehead.

He means it as a sign of forgiveness. So might a Temple elder have blessed an erring novice. No doubt he means the implied insult, as well: who is he to bless Baze Malbus, Guardian of the eighth duan?

But Baze takes from it something different from what Chirrut intends, something he wouldn't have expected himself. His entire body comes alive at the brush of Chirrut's lips against his skin.

_Shit._

"There is not one without the other," he hears Chirrut say, before he goes out to meditate, leaving Baze alone.

"Thank the Force," says the Twi'lek next door audibly. Baze stares at the ceiling, stunned.

* * *

The few remaining Guardians cannot match the Empire in numbers or arms, but they can help the growing Rebel Alliance harry the Imperial army, and that is what they do. 

When Baze is restored to health he starts fighting by Chirrut's side, but – typical of Chirrut – this is just when Chirrut says they should stop fighting.

Baze can see where he's coming from. The Rebel fighters are no kinder to the people of Jedha than the Imperial soldiers – vengeance for any perceived collaboration with the Empire is swift and brutal. Between the two powers the people suffer, and this, Chirrut says, is their concern, as Guardians of the Temple.

"It was called the Temple of the Kyber," says Baze: they both speak of the Temple in the past tense now. "Not the Temple of Jedha. The people weren't our concern then."

He's no fonder of the Rebellion than Chirrut is. But there's nothing left of him but a weapon to be turned against the Empire, and they won't make much of a dent in the Imperial forces unless they work with the Rebels.

"Maybe they should have been," says Chirrut. "We were blind to much we should have seen. Indifferent to much that should have moved us."

Baze snorts. "Strong words from a man who sat in a room thinking for three years."

"I came out, didn't I?" says Chirrut.

He stops coming for the raids, absents himself from meetings with the Alliance. Instead he spends his days on the streets of niJedha. What he's doing, Baze isn't entirely sure. 

He doesn't worry about it until Chirrut comes home one day with a few broken ribs. He refuses to tell Baze what happened. When pressed, he will only say he got between a few stormtroopers and a merchant.

"You should see the troopers," he says, grinning, then wincing. Baze adjusts the ice pack he's holding against Chirrut's chest and indulges himself in a brief fantasy of cracking open stormtroopers' heads. He's nearly as mad at Chirrut, though – for being a reckless fool; for endangering the only thing that matters anymore.

This is not how a weapon thinks, but Baze is finding out that there's more left to him than a desire to see the destruction of the Empire. In fact, if he's honest with himself, he has known this for a while, ever since he and Chirrut started fucking.

It's easier to think of it in those unadorned terms. If he and Chirrut had actually talked about it, Chirrut – a man given to coming out with embarrassing truths at inopportune times – might have pointed out that what they did was a lot like making love.

Fortunately nothing has been said on the subject. Baze just reached out one night, tired of holding back, and Chirrut had kissed him as though he'd been expecting him.

Chirrut seems to have taken it as a matter of course – a thing inevitable, decreed by the Force, no doubt. Baze stays silent because, for him, what happens between them is explosive, moving, revelatory. It has changed him. There are no words for it. 

"I'm coming with you," Baze says now, "if you're too much of a fool to keep out of fights."

Chirrut raises an eyebrow. "I wouldn't want to take you away from your work."

Baze grunts. "I'm getting tired of Saw Gerrera's melodramatics anyway."

There's just one last campaign he's agreed to do with the Rebels – a strike that will disrupt Imperial kyber mining operations for months if it comes off. When Baze tells him about it, Chirrut says he'll come along.

* * *

"I'm not risking any more people for a doomed rescue mission," says Gerrera, but Baze understands this even if he disagrees. It's not until Gerrera says, "Pray he's dead, Guardian. There are worse things than death" that Baze punches him.

That doesn't change the rebel's mind or make Baze feel better. It only confirms a rift they both knew was inevitable when they returned without Chirrut. Baze breaks with the Rebellion and goes looking for him.

This is different from the despair that attended the fall of the Temple, or even his grief about the novices, which will follow Baze all his life. It's a wound that won't scab over – a hard knot of misery in Baze's chest, that drives him on from day to day.

He will live until he knows. He won't believe there's no reason for hope until he sees a dead body. The Force owes him that much – a chance to see Chirrut's face again, to touch his hands, even if they have gone cold. 

He runs up debts, antagonises old allies, makes new enemies, collects scars … and miraculously, he tracks Chirrut down. A man of his description was found by the nuns of a splinter sect of the Temple of the Whills – an old community, but small and obscure enough that the Empire is hardly aware of its existence. Baze only knows where it is because one of the Temple cooks used to steal food to send to the nuns. Baze caught them at it but agreed to turn a blind eye, even though at the time this had been a breach of his code.

He had been different then. Always soft-hearted, to his shame, but now he can see that softness had been a truer guide than the rigid rules by which he had lived.

The softness hasn't survived. He's sucked dry of compassion; his heart is barren. The only tenderness he has left was for Chirrut, and if Chirrut is gone there will truly be nothing. No reason not to give up.

Baze has to recite the first exposition of the Kyber Sutra before the nuns trust him enough to admit to harbouring one of the Empire's captured Guardians of the Whills. They had let the man go as a warning. He was left to die on the street, but a sister had found him and they had shielded the flickering flame of his life until it grew strong again. He is a very holy man. His name is Chirrut Imwe, yes, they think so, he has spoken of a Chirrut Imwe, and a Baze Malbus, yes.

They're reluctant to let Baze see him even after this. It's only when Baze settles down on the floor and says he'll wait and recite the entire Kyber Sutra if he has to, all seven days' worth of it, that they waver. Baze is tempted to start chanting now – he needs some means of calming himself down, restraining his raging impatience. They've said Chirrut is _awake_.

"Can't you just tell him I'm here?" he says. "Ask him if he'll see me."

The nuns exchange a look.

"He may not be as you remember him, brother," says Sister Imyan. "The Empire was very cruel."

There must be something in Baze's expression that convinces them he could mean Chirrut no harm. Another look passes between the nuns. Then Sister Imyan says:

"I will take you to him. But … " She hesitates. "We have given him drugs to ease the pain, and he is not wholly in his senses even without the drugs. Be gentle."

Baze doesn't trust himself to speak. He nods.

* * *

Baze can't tell at first that it's Chirrut. The person lying in the bed is thinner. Most of the face is bandaged.

But the face turns at the sound of the door, and a voice that brings Baze's heart to his throat says:

"More herbal concoctions, sister? You spoil me."

It's weak, but recognisable. Baze pauses, steadying himself against the wall. The nun looks up, startled, but when she sees his face she touches his arm and moves away.

"If you could bring yourself to drink more, you would grow stronger," she says, bending over the bed. "But we've tormented you enough today. It's a guest, brother."

When Baze is sure he won't disgrace himself, he joins the nun by the bedside, sitting heavily in the chair she brings. Chirrut can't see him; his eyes are bandaged too.

"Chirrut," says Baze.

Despite the nun's warning it's a shock when Chirrut says dreamily:

"Chirrut? I know that name."

Sister Imyan steps back discreetly, giving them space, but she doesn't leave. Chirrut has been in good hands here. She only shakes her head when Baze looks at her.

"It's Baze," he says. "Do you know me?"

It's as though Chirrut is at the bottom of a well, one so deep messages only reach him after a delay. After a pause he says, in that faint echo of his own voice – a voice profoundly familiar, deeply loved:

"My friend Baze Malbus? Yes, I know him. I saw him when they held me, many times. The Force brought me visions of him. Thank the Force he was not there." He goes silent for a time, perhaps praying, perhaps dreaming. Then: "Have you had news of Baze?"

"Yes."

"He's well?"

'Well' was stretching it, Baze would have said if Chirrut was himself. "He's much as he ever was. What happened to you – to Chirrut Imwe?"

That pause again, but Chirrut seems uncertain even after the question reaches him. He turns his head on his pillow. "Did Baze send you?"

"Yes. What happened?"

"Then," says Chirrut, more to himself than anyone else, "perhaps I should not speak."

"Why not?" says Baze. His voice is rougher than he wants it to be; he can feel Sister Imyan's disapproval, but he needs the answer. "Doesn't he of all people have a right to know?"

"I fear for Baze," says Chirrut. "Great heart … he bears a heavy load." His voice is full of tenderness. "I fear the Force has tried him too hard."

"Tell me," says Baze. "What did they do to Chirrut Imwe?"

A fleeting smile, without mirth, flickers over what Baze can see of Chirrut's face.

"What didn't they do?" he says. "They wanted to send a message, to put a stop to further attempts. They were getting spooked. For all Saw Gerrera's unsavoury tactics, he is effective."

"Chirrut – "

"They tortured him," says the distant voice. "They put his eyes out."

Baze did not cry for the fall of the Temple, or the loss of his faith, or even for the novices. 

Now he puts his hand over his eyes and weeps by Chirrut's bed. Quietly, at first, but then in great racking sobs, as though the grief is being carved out of him.

Chirrut seems sorry for him, from a vast remove. He turns towards Baze, lets out a small "Ah" of recognition – not of Baze, but of his sorrow.

"I wish I could help you, friend," says Chirrut. "But I am also in darkness."

A long moment passes, while Chirrut fumbles through his darkness. Then the voice comes, from the bottom of the well:

"May the Force be with us both."

Baze doesn't answer. His weeping has grown violent enough that he frightens Sister Imyan.

"Come, brother," says the nun. "Come away. You will worry him."

"I'm sorry," says Baze. "I'm sorry."

* * *

Chirrut recovers faster with the medical help Baze is able to get him. A man with neither scruples nor fear, who's not picky about the jobs he takes, is able to earn a great deal in Imperial-occupied Jedha.

Chirrut needs a great deal. But he gets better. He's back at his exercises before his fingernails have even grown back. Baze would prefer Chirrut to focus on seated meditation over forms, at least until he's regained his former strength: he can chant mantras twelve hours a day if he wants to, says Baze, if he'll promise not to fling himself around with his stick, testing muscles and bones just healed.

But it's not up to Baze. Chirrut's no better at listening than he was before.

On better drugs than were available to the nuns, he's soon himself again, and if his experiences trouble him he doesn't let Baze know it. But he doesn't recover his sight. If they had access to Imperial medical technology, maybe they could have saved it. But they don't.

They should be grateful they're alive at all, says Chirrut. The Force is great.

Baze is not grateful. He does not forget.

* * *

Baze starts quarrelling with Chirrut again, since he knows Chirrut finds his mildness in the face of deliberate provocation insulting. He rolls his eyes at Chirrut's jokes, and they even begin sparring. 

The first time Chirrut throws Baze, Baze lies in the dust with his eyes shut, pretending to be embarrassed that he was beaten by a blind man whose ankle aches when it rains.

It's the first time the sick anger that's dogged Baze since Chirrut was taken is lifted. He would laugh if he didn't think Chirrut would take it the wrong way.

It's only a temporary reprieve. The next day the anger is back, fresh as ever. But even a reprieve is more than he'd hoped for.

The one thing Baze won't do is respond to Chirrut's baiting in bed. It had become clear even in the short time they'd had together before that Chirrut was fond of rough-housing. Baze has never had much taste for play-acting, and these days he's in no mood to pretend. He lets Chirrut yank at his hair and scratch bloody lines down his back, but keeps making love to him with determined gentleness.

If Chirrut shared Baze's squeamishness on the subject of sex, the matter might have stayed there indefinitely. Unfortunately Chirrut insists on talking about it. They have an almighty fight, which makes Chirrut so insufferable that Baze finally rolls his eyes, pins him down and gives him what he wants. 

"There," says Chirrut triumphantly, when they're lying together after, panting and sweaty. "I'm still in one piece, aren't I?"

Baze still has nightmares about the nuns finding a bloody corpse on the streets of Jedha. "Hmph."

Chirrut runs his fingers through Baze's hair. Baze can tell he's starting to feel guilty. "We don't have to do it this way if you don't enjoy it."

"Hmph," says Baze. He doesn't _not_ enjoy it. There's a lot to enjoy about holding Chirrut down and fucking his face. That's not the point.

He doesn't say any of this, but Chirrut seems to get it. He goes quiet, carding through Baze's hair in a soothing rhythm. "Your hair is getting long." He laughs. "Would you trust me to cut it?"

Baze has been prepared for this. "I'm not cutting it anymore."

When the Temple still stood, everyone from the youngest novice to the highest-ranked elder had shaved their head every change of the seasons. There is no Temple anymore, but Chirrut's hands go still with surprise. "Why?"

Chirrut's eyes are half-shut. Baze brushes the lids lightly with his thumb.

"I'm not cutting my hair," he says carefully, "until I've killed the Imperials who did this to you."

"Baze," says Chirrut. 

He's not happy, but Baze didn't expect him to be. He's not doing it to make Chirrut happy.

"We don't know who did it," says Chirrut. "I couldn't tell you. 

"Wouldn't," he adds, "even if I knew."

"Then I'm not cutting my hair till they're _all_ dead," says Baze.

Chirrut takes his hands off Baze's head and rolls away. Baze doesn't go after him.

"Baze," says Chirrut wearily. "What difference would it make?"

Baze doesn't answer. He can't give up his anger even for Chirrut's sake, because if that goes, he's not sure there will be anything left. His grief would swallow all, even this space for gentleness – this love he's scrounged from the ruins of everything he's ever cared about.

He rises from his pallet and goes over to the basin. Plunges his face into it and emerges gasping from the cold.

"It wouldn't make you feel better," says Chirrut behind him. "Killing all those people."

Baze stares at himself in the small cracked mirror.

"Oh," he says, "it would."

* * *

But Baze never cuts his hair.

They live on despite it all, until the Force finds its use for Chirrut, leading them to a battlefield on Scarif.

Baze is granted mercy, after all, of a sort. He feels it when Chirrut's heart stops, holds his beautiful hands one last time. There's no doubt about whether he's allowed to give up.

He takes some of the bastards down with him, of course. But after so long, death comes fast, and then there's an end to anger, an end to pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Title after the song One Day Late by Sam Phillips: "Help is coming, help is coming / One day late, one day late / After you've given up and all is gone / Help is coming one day late."


End file.
